


Tweeted

by MistressYin



Series: Just A Word [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Child Neglect, Forests, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Steve Harrington, Pet Birds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 20:48:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressYin/pseuds/MistressYin
Summary: Steve just wanted to have a pet.He didn't know this would happen.





	Tweeted

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, day four! I don't really think you have to read the previous ones to understand this, but I'd recommend it (on a totally unbiased level).
> 
> And the word of the day is...Tweeted!

Steve cradled the bird tightly in his hands, cooing at him soothingly. 

It was a hot summer day in Hawkins, the air thick and muggy, the sun beating down on one side of him making him want to turn away from the glare of the heat. He resisted the urge as he felt the bird begin to nip at his finger, most likely not good for him but seemingly comforting the creature in his arms. 

He wasn’t sure what was wrong with the bird, but there was a slit in the feathers on one wing that wasn’t there on the other, which made him think something had literally sliced it open. It was covered in black gunk, slime sliding off of it. 

He frowned, unsure what to do other than wipe the liquid off of the bird’s mouth so it could breathe. 

He stumbled through Hawkins woods, a place he was absurdly familiar with because of the closeness to his house and being unsupervised nearly 24/7. 

He found his way to the small stream that ran through a couple of the famers fields after a minimum amount of walking, careful not to jerk the bird in any way. 

He knelt next to the water that glimmered and rippled his reflection back at him, and gently placed the bird inside it. 

The bird instantly began flapping its uninjured wing around and chirping indignantly, but calmed once steve let go and wiped his own hands off in the water. 

The bird, which he was pretty sure was a male according to its colors, settled down and began casually dunking his head into the water, trying to wash the gunk and goo that had appeared on his feathers. 

“What happened to you, little guy?”

The bird twitted and preened superiorly in response, turning its head away as if offended by the question. 

The bird flapped out of the water, shaking its small head irritably. Steve grinned. 

The bird looked odd, it was oddly bony (did birds have bones?) and seemed to be a little disoriented as it wobbled. The dark colors of its feathers were nothing like Steve had seen on a bird before, with deep black and brown swirling together. Its beak, was curved and matched the color of its feathers. 

He tilted his head as the bird let out an odd shrieking sound at him, flapping his not-broken wing awkwardly once more. 

“That’s an odd noise you make.”

The bird made it again, except this time, it didn’t stop. “Are you hungry, little guy?” Steve chuckled, “I guess I need to name you so I can distin- dis-tin-gua-“ he frowned, “Tell you apart from other birds.”

The bird hadn’t stopped yelling at him, tweets unlike others heard from birds. 

“I’m sorry, I only have human food, unnamed.” He apologized, getting his granola bar out from his pocket to demonstrate his lack of bird food. “I can find you some bugs?” he suggested. 

But to his shock, the bird dove toward the granola bar, munching away at it and nipping again at his hand. He jumped in shock. “Birds don’t eat—“ he shook his head, “I guess they can eat granola. I’ve never heard of it, but maybe. I think there may be chocolate in here, though.”

He curiously examined the bird as he ate his snack, leaving only the wrapper. The bird dug his beak into the wrapper, searching for the barest of crumbs and shaking its tail feathers as it did so. 

The bird (Uh, name?) made another loud noise before taking the whole wrapper into its mouth and trying to swallow it down. 

Steve lunged for the wrapper, “NO! Don’t, that’s bad for you, you’ll choke!” he reasoned, grabbing for the wrapper only to be bitten across his palm. 

He yanked his hand back and stared at it in disbelief. Blood dripped down his palm. He frowned. “You bit me.” But the blood seemed to attract the bird, as it tried to bite him again, wrapper forgotten. Steve wagged his finger at him disapprovingly. 

“No, no biting-“ he paused as the bird squawked indignantly, “Tweeted, no biting okay?”

He decided tweeted could be the substitute name for him while he thought. 

Tweeted tilted his head curiously at him, before nuzzling his palm and settling his feathers as he chirped happily. 

Tweeted then proceeded to look around himself probably searching for more food. 

“I got some more food at my house?” Steve suggested, not feeling crazy whatsoever for talking to the bird that seemed to understand him to some degree. 

Steve watched the birds head snap towards him, before hopping in a little dancy fashion back into his hands, waiting for him to bring him to the promised food. 

Steve grinned. 

He stood up, cradling the bird gently as it began biting at him again, before wobbling back to the direction (he thought) was his house. 

When Steve finally got home, he had many infected bites all over his hands as Tweeted waited impatiently for him to bring the food about. 

He had forgotten to come up with a better name for him, and Tweeted sound so normal now he couldn’t really take it back. 

He slipped inside of his house, a seven year old alone clutching his new friend tightly in his hands. 

He parried the glass shards that were occasionally on the floor from the lack of sweeping. Steve made it across the room, jumping up onto the counter to reach inside their food cabinet. 

He studied it with a frown. “What would you like best, Tweeted?”

Tweeted took that as its cue to hop into the counter and begin prodding at the food curiously. Steve ignored the part of him that imagined this was unsanitary. 

The bird found a plastic box of scoops ahoy toppings left over from his mom’s visit to the mall in Evansville, and dragged it onto the counter, chirping and tweeting his odd squawks as he delved into it. 

Steve climbed down, toeing back around the glass, and searched for something to clean off his hands. His teacher had used the food ‘Lemons’ in class this week as a cleaner example when a young girl scraped her knee, while the nurse brought Hydrogen Peroxide because the girl had been in hysterical to be moved without endangering her further, screaming for her parents. The teacher had said if they didn’t have access to things like ‘Hydroproxide’ then lemons also cleaned cuts out. 

“Have any of you made lemonade? Well, you may have noticed that your hands sting or burn badly when squeezing the lemons. That because it’s cleaning them.” He remembered her explaining. 

He didn’t know if they had the special stuff in their house. But he knew they had lemons. 

Steve opened the fridge drawer and pulled out the lemon, unsure of how this was going to work. The juice cleaned stuff, not the skin. He frowned, realizing his plan hadn’t worked. That is until he remembered the bird sharp beak. 

“Hey Tweeted?” he addressed his friend as he climbed back up onto the counter next to him. He presented the lemon to it. “It’s sour, but can you open it or something?”

Challenged gleamed in the birds eyes as it tore it open in one quick slash, munching on the skin of the lemon before continuing his good way on the mall snacks. 

Instantly, the burn made him whine and drop the lemon as the juice dripped into both of his hands cuts, bubbling and stinging unbearably. 

Tweeted paused in his eating to stare at him in concern. 

He hurried off the counter, the broken glass slipping into his foot as he ran over to dry off his hands. 

He looked down to dry it off, swallowing thickly as he panic didn’t seize and neither did the pain. 

When he looked back up, he jumped. 

Tweeted was staring straight at him, wings raised. 

“Did you fly?”

Tweeted preened, ruffling his feathers. Steve shook his head, the pain still niggling at the back of his mind. 

He went over to the sink and washed his hands with soap, ignoring the way that nearly stung just as much. When he was done and had dried his hands again, only an insistent throb remained in his hand. He glared heatedly at the lemon. 

Tweeted followed suit. 

Then he noticed that Tweeted was staring at the window suddenly, pupils of the red eyes dilating. 

“Do you want to go out?”

He asked cautiously. The bird suddenly gave an extremely loud shriek before zooming out the window, the glass shattering. 

His hands flew up to shield his face. 

When he looked back, Tweeted was gone. 

 

(Tweeted)

 

Steve ran, panting hard. He still remembered seeing the demodogs face as it was called to...something. it reminded him vaguely of Tweeted. 

But now, concussion and bloody nose like so many he received before, he was running for his life away from a fire they just started.

Until the group came to a dead stop as he heard the sound of something growling. 

Before them, was Dustin’s pet Demodog. Tweeted flitted back through his mind and he bit his tongue on the warnings he had prepared for Dustin, remembering his own sorrow at losing his friend. 

He closed her eyes briefly, readying his bat just in case Dustin’s careful touches didn’t go well. He bit his bruised lip to stop himself from scolding Dustin when he leaned down, imagining Tweeted there instead. 

Just a few weeks ago, he had seen Tweeted again. Much bigger, and much scarier. 

Jane had pushed it up against a classroom wall and destroyed it. Tweeted had grown up to be a demogorgan. 

And Dart was a Demodog. He didn’t understand how it worked, but he could only guess that Demodogs and Demogorgan’s could come from both lizards and birds, perhaps even various other baby-forms, and that determined their strength. 

Or something. He hadn’t thought on this at all. 

He was relieved beyond words when the demogorgan let them pass, and Dustin didn’t have to lose two pets in the same week. 

He thought back to Tweeted with a frown. 

He wondered if he could’ve coaxed it to go back to the upside-down if given the chance.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, this was pretty weird. 
> 
> Thanks again, from MistressYin


End file.
